Until Death do We Part
by Meanderings
Summary: [Hanagumi][Maricentric] How Mari found Chuck. “Don’t worry. Mari will take care of you always.”


**Until Death do We Part **

**Summary:** How Mari found Chuck. "Don't worry. Mari will take care of you always."  
**Notes:** Something I came up with in about an hour. Eh. I'll probably do one about Kanna next.  
**Disclaimer:** If I owned Shaman King, Hao and the Hanagumi would be my best friends. My best friend is some money obsessed girl.  
**Edited**: Oct. 6

* * *

"You look adorable," the maid said when she finished tying the ribbons in the young girl's limp, blonde hair. Lazy emerald eyes flickered toward the reflection in the large, bronze-framed mirror. She nodded in approval and the maid left.

The door opened again almost immediately after the maid left and a tall, blonde woman stepped in.

"Let's go, Marion. You have school."

The girl let herself be led into the sleek, black car and be driven to the old school building. All the while, she was staring at the porcelain doll she held in her bony hands.

When the school bell rung, the teachers had their students order themselves into a single-file line and marched them out onto the school ground. Marion didn't wait for her parents like most of the other girls. Instead, she walked past the iron gate and spent the afternoon wandering around the streets. Her family was use to her odd habit and had two men following her since they had found out. Marion didn't mind.

Wordlessly and with a blank face, she wove in and out of the stalls down at the market and picked up things that interested her and then put them back down.

Today, her walk had led her all the way down to the canals. The water or boats didn't interest her like they did with most children. Her attention was all sucked up by something else.

It's always the thing that was out of place that stood out the most.

Lying near a bridge was a bundle of ragged material.

Marion tilted her head, pigtails swinging along, curious as to what it was.

Not hesitating at all, not worried that it was something bad, she walked towards it confidently and picked it up from the ground, her hands brushing dirt from it.

It was a doll. Well, at least, it looked like some sort of doll. It wasn't the usual delicate porcelain dolls Marion played with or kept on a shelf in her room. It looked like it was hand made, but Marion didn't mind. She liked it much better than her other boring dolls.

"Don't worry. Mari will take care of you always," she said, not caring about some of the strange stares she received for talking to a doll. After all, she was only seven.

Then the most peculiar thing happened; the doll nodded its head. Mari didn't imagine it and for some odd, unexplained reason, she found nothing disturbing about it. It was perfectly normal. She cradled the doll close to her.

"I'll call you Chuck."

Marion returned home in the late afternoon and spent her time washing Chuck clean until she called down to dinner.

"So, Marion, what did you do at school today?" her mother asked.

Marion prodded her pasta with her fork. "I found Chuck."

"Who's Chuck?" the woman smiled, thinking it was a friend.

"Chuck's my best friend," Marion answered. "I'm not hungry."

"You can go to your room then."

Pigtails bouncing, Mari ran up the stairs and resumed washing Chuck. When she was tucked in at night, the flimsy doll rested on the pillow next to her head.

Her mother didn't question the new doll, anything to make her daughter happy. She figured that when Marion grew up, she'd throw the dolls out. No worries.

A few weeks later, a maid was dusting Marion's room. The blonde girl sat on her bed, tying the shoelaces of her new shoes slowly, trying to make the bow perfect.

"Ah!"

The shriek caused Marion to look up and she saw something red spread quickly across her tea table.

"Marion, quick, get out!" the maid shouted, frantically pointing to the door before she ran out. Marion's eyes widen when she realized that the maid had accidentally knocked over a lit candle while cleaning.

Remembering what her mother told her, she jumped off the bed and ran downstairs where a couple of maids were waiting anxiously to take her out. As soon as her small feet reached the bottom step, a thought hit her.

"Where's Chuck?" she shrieked. Her mind raced and stopped on the image of the doll lying on her bed. She immediately turned around and ran back up the stairs, despite the maids' cries not to and the school's teachings of "drop everything and get out when there's a fire."

Bursting through the door, Marion found her room nearly encased in flames and on the edge of the bed was Chuck, sitting peacefully as if he was waiting for her to come back. She grabbed him and dashed away, muttering, "Mari is sorry, Chuck, Mari is sorry!"

The firefighters came soon enough and the house was saved. Luckily, only Marion's and a couple of other rooms had been lost to the fire. The house had plenty of other rooms to spare.

The mother broke through the crowd that had gathered and scooped up Marion in her arms, crying, "Oh thank merciful God! you're fine."

"It's okay, Mama," Marion said. "Chuck's okay, too."

When Marion's mother placed her back on the ground again, the little girl asked the doll, "Aren't you, Chuck? You're okay, right?"

Chuck nodded his round, fat head.

After Marion was settled in a temporary room, her mother promised to replace all her expensive porcelain dolls, but all Marion said was, "I don't care. I don't like them. I like Chuck!"

Her mother didn't question because she was grateful that she didn't have to spend any more money.

A year later, her mother received unsettling news from the school.

"We're not sure, but apparently your daughter has mental issues," one of the teachers said during a conference.

"My daughter is perfectly fine!" the mother snapped.

"Are sure? Take a look." The teacher led the mother through the decorated halls to an empty classroom. Marion's mother peeked through the small window in the door, feeling uneasy about spying on her daughter as if she was an experiment.

Marion seemed perfectly fine. She wore the frilly dress her mother had given her and her blonde hair was still up in pigtails. However, in her outstretched hands, she was holding the worn doll that Marion's mother had seen many times.

"Listen and look carefully," the teacher said. Marion's mother nodded.

"We'll go down to the canals again tomorrow. It'll be fun, Chuck." Marion's sweet, high voice was heard faintly through the door.

Chuck nodded.

Marion's mother reeled back and covered her mouth with her hands to muffle a scream. Fearfully, she faced the teacher.

"H-how long as this been going on?"

"About a year, ever since Marion started bringing that doll to school."

How could she have not noticed before? Marion's mother nodded, "I'll talk to her tonight."

Marion had just slipped on her nightgown when she heard the door opened. She smiled slightly when she saw her mother.

"Mama."

"Marion. I'd like to ask you something."

"Sure."

"What is Chuck, exactly?"

"He's my friend! I thought you knew that already."

"Does he talk?"

"All the time! But he usually nods when other people are around."

"Okay. . . . Good night, Marion."

"Good night, Mama."

The woman walked out unsteadily, feeling a headache coming on. She'd have to take her daughter to a doctor.

They came back in the afternoon. The doctor said that there was nothing wrong. It was just a phase some children went through. When she questioned about the doll being able to move, the doctor waved it off, unable to see any proof of the claim.

Another year later, Marion was nine. Her mother was almost driven to the point of insanity. She had seen her daughter talk to the doll and the monstrosity nod back. Marion drifted away, began wearing darker colors and even brought Chuck to church. During the night, Marion's mother could hear her daughter talking to the doll and her giggle echoed through the house.

She even noticed that Marion had developed a habit of telling stories to her doll, and soon she was talking from an outside person's view. The word 'I' slowly slid away from her vocabulary.

She didn't know what was wrong! She spent nights reading books over hallucinations, mental illnesses, and such, but none gave her answers. The doll was alive, she knew it. She couldn't sleep at night and she constantly shivered, even when covered with layers of blankets.

Soon she found herself unable to deal with it any longer and one day angrily stomped up to her daughter's room.

She threw the door opened and screamed, "What's wrong with you? Are you crazy? Stop talking to that stupid doll!"

Marion was frozen in shock for she had never seen her mother lose her composure ever. Fuming from the lack of response, Marion's mother strode over to the bed and tossed Chuck onto the ground.

The sparkling green eyes turned hard at the action.

"Don't do that to Chuck!" Marion screamed.

The woman merely grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her roughly. "It's not real! Do you hear me, it's not real! Now stop talking to it!"

Marion shoved the woman away. "No! Chuck is real! Chuck is real! You're stupid! You don't know anything!"

The sound of skin against skin rang. Marion's frail body fell onto the floor from the force of the slap. She looked up slowly, her cheek glowing red. Her green eyes were filled with anger.

"Mari hates you!"

The next thing Marion's mother knew was that she flung backwards by some invisible power. She clutched at her stomach and felt something moisten her hand. She screamed when she saw it was blood.

"You evil child! You're not my child! What did you do, you witch?"

Marion stood above her, blonde bangs shielding her eyes, Chuck pointed down at her. A gun rested in the doll's hand.

"Mari is no witch. She's a shaman. Mari doesn't like you. You hurt Chuck and Mari does not pity you."

"Get out! Get out!"

All Marion's mother remembered was another burst of pain, blood splattering on the ground, before she blacked out.

Marion lowered her hand and hugged Chuck.

"Mari doesn't mind leaving. All she needs is Chuck."

Chuck nodded.

That was last anyone saw of Marion Phauna in Italy. She attended school for one last day and had been glimpsed a few times a few days after before she completely disappeared.

By the time Marion was ten, she had left Europe entirely and was training in Japan to become a stronger shaman, vowing to make her mother suffer even more for handling Chuck in such an unjust way. No one treated Chuck like that.

"Mari will never leave Chuck and Chuck will never leave her."

In the end, Marion grew to love Chuck more than Hao-sama.


End file.
